Although early Dallas maps clearly show a "Colored Cemetery" adjacent to the much larger Greenwood and Jewish cemeteries, somehow the location of the city's Freedmen's Cemetery was forgotten over the years. Part of the reason, perhaps, is that many of the graves were unmarked, making the site less conspicous than neighboring burial grounds.(Note: "Freedmen" was a term used after the Civil War to refer to the recently-freed slaves.)

In the 1980s, when a development called City Place was in the works, the cemetery was rediscovered, causing plans for a multi-story office building on the west side of Central Expressway to be scrapped. In the 1990s this impressive entrance portal, celebrating the freedmen's African heritage, was erected on the site, along with other bold and thought-provoking statuary.